James Franco goes home

I just finished reading Palo Alto. It’s a group of short stories about young people who live in this part of California. It’s author comes from Palo Alto and is also known as a successful film actor and artist. For James Franco to write a book must have been a big task.

The book is a refreshing read because it’s approach is honest and unpretentious. The characters are believable and the way they talk rings true. It feels like there’s a lot of the author in there and the fine observations he makes of the little details of everyday life are fresh and perceptive.

You could maybe criticise the book for re-treading old ground and not doing anything that others haven’t already done (e.g. Salinger? Joyce?). But all ground is old ground these days, I reckon (and was already old when both Salinger or Joyce were writing). In that sense, there can never be anything new. But then again, it is new because these are new eyes doing the observing. If we were all defeated by the thought that there was nothing left that hasn’t already been done then no new books would ever be written, no new music would ever be made, no new pictures would ever be painted…

With his background in movies it might have been tempting for the author to write a book which read like it was a film. He hasn’t done that. This is a ‘proper’ book. It’s obvious that, as well as loving films, the writer also loves reading. Personally I thought Palo Alto was honest, emotional, perceptive and entertaining. James Franco’s new big task is to write another one.

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2 thoughts on “James Franco goes home”

I’m really glad you wrote a review of this – I’ve heard a lot about it, and also a lot of negative criticism towards James Franco, mainly for ‘trying to wear too many hats’. Personally if I had the funds he does I’d have LOVED the opportunity to do PHD and MFA courses at Columbia, NYU, Berkeley etc etc 🙂
I don’t often read short stories, but would definitely consider looking at Palo Alto having read your comments
C-C xx
PS Give this post a title so it’s easy to click on individually and comment – I had to click back from the next post to get to it

Thanks for that. Glad you found the review useful. Funny how people get uptight when you value something like education instead of, say, collecting fast cars or big houses etc. Also the kind of subject James Franco is into seems to make people uncomfortable too, ie- the arts. I remember getting a lot of flack from schoolmates for liking artistic subjects; they would say what USE is art? I always think that it’s use is to improve the most important thing of all, the QUALITY of life. It’s great to be able to fix a pipe or build a house but what’s the point of being alive at all if you have no quality of life? And I put a title on the post too!

Jon Kenna

This blog is called BAD EYES partly because my eyesight really is very bad. It's now so poor that it's officially classed as 'complex'. But I can still see and this is a blog about the things I see through my bad eyes. The title BAD EYES also refers my particular slant on life; random things that happen to me, things that I like, things that I don't like, funny things, weird things, scary things, controversial things, books I read, films I see, music I listen to; all the usual stuff. Even though its me, me, me, I'd also love to hear about you. The Comments button is there to be used. Thanks for visiting and please subscribe to my blog (you don't have to register with Wordpress to do this, just fill in the panel below) so that I can delude myself that I am popular. Be seeing you.

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